Wear-resistant, superabrasive materials are traditionally utilized for a variety of mechanical applications. For example, polycrystalline diamond (“PCD”) materials are often used in drilling tools (e.g., cutting elements, gage trimmers, etc.), machining equipment, bearing apparatuses, wire-drawing machinery, and in other mechanical systems. Conventional superabrasive materials have found utility as superabrasive cutting elements in rotary drill bits, such as roller cone drill bits and fixed-cutter drill bits. A conventional cutting element may include a disc-shaped superabrasive layer or table, such as a PCD table, bonded to a cylindrical substrate.
Cutting elements having a PCD table may be formed and bonded to an end surface of a substrate using an ultra-high pressure, ultra-high temperature (“HPHT”) sintering process. A conventional cutting element may comprise a cylindrical substrate having a disc-shaped PCD table bonded to an end surface of the substrate. Often, a cutting element having a PCD table is fabricated by placing a cemented carbide substrate, such as a cobalt-cemented tungsten carbide substrate, into a container or cartridge with a volume of diamond particles positioned on an end surface of the cemented carbide substrate. The substrate and diamond particle volume may be processed under HPHT conditions in the presence of a catalyst material that causes the diamond particles to bond to one another to form a diamond table having a matrix of bonded diamond crystals. The catalyst material is often a metal-solvent catalyst, such as cobalt, nickel, and/or iron, that facilitates intergrowth and bonding of the diamond crystals. A number of cartridges containing substrates and diamond particle volumes may be loaded into a HPHT press. Commonly used HPHT presses include cubic, belt, and prismatic presses.
Cutting elements may be secured to drill bits by brazing, press-fitting, or otherwise securing the cutting elements into preformed pockets, sockets, or other mounting receptacles formed in a rotary drill bit. In some configurations, the cutting element substrates may be brazed or otherwise joined to attachment members such as studs or cylindrical backings. Generally, a rotary drill bit may include one or more PCD cutting elements affixed to a bit body of the rotary drill bit. Cutting elements are often mounted to a drill bit so that edge portions, or cutting edges, of the PCD tables face generally toward a rock formation being drilled.
As a rock formation is drilled, cutting edges of PCD tables on the cutting elements may cut away portions of the rock formation. Over time, the cutting edges of the PCD tables may become worn due to various forces that the PCD tables are subjected to during drilling. As the cutting edges of the PCD tables are worn, the cutting edges may become progressively more planar and/or rounded and the cutting effectiveness of the cutting elements may be reduced significantly. Eventually, the cutting elements on drill bits may need to be replaced, leading to delays in drilling operations and added expense to remove the cutting elements and install new cutting elements on the drill bits. Such delays may cause unnecessary downtime and production losses.